Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

There is absolutely no catch. We charge zero agency fees and zero hidden commissions. LuluHives is built strictly as a social welfare platform to maintain liquidity in the housing market, protect your purchasing power, and give you peace of mind. Our goal is to make student mobility affordable and stress-free.

We use a B2B (Business-to-Business) model. We partner directly with universities, who pay an annual partnership fee (often funded by their mandatory CVEC student welfare budgets). The university pays the platform fee so that you don’t have to pay anything to use it.

Subletting: Give your accommodation to another person for while you are away.
Hosting: Keep other person(s) in your accommodation by sharing your available housing space.

LuluHives is a connection platform, meaning we do not process rent payments or take a cut of your transactions. If you are subletting or hosting, the incoming student pays the rent directly to you (the original tenant), and you continue to pay your landlord as usual.

LuluHives is a highly secure, closed-loop network. To join, simply go to Sign-in > Register using your valid university email address (e.g., @essec.edu, @hec.edu, etc) if your college is part of the “Hive.” You can check our Colleges page to see which institutions are active partners of LuluHives. Your college email becomes your unique identification, meaning you automatically get verified the exact moment you sign up. There is no need for any extra, complicated verification steps!

Don’t worry! Simply fill out the contact form on our Contact Us page and express your desire to join. Please make sure to explicitly mention the name of your university. We will then make dedicated efforts to contact your university’s administration to set up a partnership. Once successful, you will be officially notified by your university that the platform is open for you.

LuluHives is built for both active students and alumni! We know exactly how important and helpful the alumni network can be in these housing situations, especially during your studies or jobs. As long as you have access to your college email and your college remains an active partner of LuluHives, your account and all of your platform privileges remain fully active.

Every single user is automatically authenticated only through their official university email. There are absolutely no Gmail, no Hotmail, or any common email providers allowed to sign up on the platform, so no stranger can get in. Because everyone’s university identity is strictly tied to their actions, it creates a highly secure, high-trust environment where you are only dealing with verified peers.

Because of our closed-loop system, scams are incredibly difficult to pull off. However, in the highly unlikely event that fraudulent activity occurs, we take the matter extremely seriously. Because every user is tied to their unique university email identification, we have a clear digital trail. This verified identification will be immediately used to help authorities and the respective university track the person down and bring fair justice.

Because LuluHives is a peer-to-peer network of verified students from partner universities, malicious disputes are exceptionally rare. If a disagreement does occur regarding the stay, it should be resolved using the terms clearly outlined in the simple Hosting or Sublease contract you both signed before the move-in.

For basic protection, the incoming student should always hold standard civil liability insurance (Responsabilité civile) costing just a few euros per month, which covers accidental damage to third-party property. If a damage incident does happen, you simply need to document it and inform your main housing insurance provider to handle the claim.

This depends entirely on the specific terms of your lease. If your contract strictly mentions that you need permission to host or sublease, then it is legally mandatory to get your landlord’s written consent. If your specific lessor’s contract has no mention of it at all, then it is not strictly mandatory to get permission (though we still highly recommend asking them, especially in the case of subleasing).

You don’t need complex, expensive agency paperwork. To legally formalize the stay between you and the other student, using a simple, standard Hosting Contract (Contrat d’hébergement) or a standard Sublease Contract (Contrat de sous-location) works perfectly fine.

Yes! Hosting or subletting is perfectly legal as long as you follow the rules of your specific lease. However, there is one strict legal rule you must follow: you cannot charge your subtenant more than the exact rent you pay yourself. LuluHives is a social welfare tool designed to help you avoid paying double rent and support your peers.